I often get panicked emails from women who want me to help them determine the cause of their accelerated shedding so that this knowledge can help them to stop it. An examples of some of the comments that I've gotten are: "I've had shedding before, maybe some seasonal hair loss or some slight hair loss during or after pregnancy, but this is something else. It's much worse. At this rate, I'll be bald in no time;" or "I've shed before but this time it's really bad and my scalp itches and hurts. This is different than before. What could be causing this?" I'll address these concerns in the following article.
TE (Telogen Effluvium): Generally speaking, most prolonged and accreted hair loss and shedding falls under the TE umbrella. Specifically though, many different things can cause this. Sometimes there are medical issues like an illness or surgery. Sometimes, you've changed your medications or have started a new one (common culprits are anti depressants, birth control pills, heart medications, and hormones or anti androgens.) Sometimes, internal hormonal changes are at play (menopause, hypo or hyper thyroidism, or adrenal insufficiency or burn out.)
The treatment and / or cure for TE depends on what is causing it. If you can address or fix the cause, this is the first thing that you should do. For example, you can try an alternate but equally effective medication. Or, you can balance your hormones. But in cases like surgery or giving birth, there is little that you can do but wait, address any inflammation of the scalp, and try to hurry along and stimulate healthy regrowth.
Scalp Issues: Sometimes, there is nothing internally going on, but your scalp is to blame. Often what ever is going on with your scalp or hair follicles causes inflammation that chokes out or negatively affects your hair follicles causing many to go into the resting phase at one time. Examples of this are yeast infections or yeast overgrowth, ring worm, or bacteria infections.
Sometimes, a new shampoo that you use may not agree with you. Or, more commonly the hair dye that you use can cause a very negative reaction. Everyone experiences a little hair loss when they dye their hair but some people get severe reactions. Sometimes along with the shedding you'll see redness, irritation, little bumps, or scaling. The treatment for this is effectively treating and healing the scalp. Be careful that the treatment you chose isn't so harsh that it makes the problem worse.
Coping With Awful Hair Shedding: I know that this is psychologically hard. It's easy to panic when you see all that hair. It's easy to let you mind wander to a place where you become afraid that, at this pace, you'll become bald. In truth, it would take about three years of constant shedding and no regrowth for this to happen. As long as you're regrowing, you should be OK.
It's important to know that, whatever the cause of your loss, there are always effective treatments that you can explore. Wear dark clothes so that you aren't always having to pick hair off yourself with embarrassment and never count your shed hairs (hoping to be under the "normal" 100 per day.) So many people will tell you that this becomes a very distressing habit that makes it difficult to ignore what's going on. Try to distract yourself with other things as stress will likely only make the situation worse. Focus on what you have control over - stress reduction, getting a healthy diet, finding and eliminating your trigger (if possible), supporting healthy regrowth and addressing any inflammation or issues on your scalp.
